. >>> from capitol hill, i want to bring in congressman keith ellison, a democrat from minnesota.afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon. how are you? >> great. is this a mom we should be marking with release and gratitude, as the president said, a grandmother in oregon was saved from the fatal effects of breast cancer because of a free mammogram, that a child in arizona can undergo heart surgery without her parents having a heart attack, because the insurance company refuse to pay. we should celebrate there. >> we should be dancing in the streets. when we passed it was one of my best days. in my office i have an intern named abby, she was 17 years old, had a very serious illness -- yes, i can -- and she was able to -- she was able to avoid these lifetime limits, which gave he really a new lease on life literally. so this is a good day. i'm real happy, and i don't know why republicans aren't joining in other than for political reasons. >> for all benefits the president has laid out, the affordable care act has remain some of of an abstraction, one that people aren't too thrilled with. i

we will be standing with you, congressman keith ellison.nk you so much for your time. >> zblem thank you to the brennan center's wendy wiser. we will have more for you after the break. that's real love. and so is giving him real tasty food. but some leading dog foods add sugar, dyes, or even artificial preservatives. [ dog whimpers ] but now there's new so good! from iams. with 100% real wholesome ingredients and none of those other things. now that's real love. so is that. new so good! see what's really in your dog's bowl at iams.com. what are you guys doing? having some fiber! with new phillips' fiber good gummies. they're fruity delicious! just two gummies have 4 grams of fiber! to help support regularity! i want some... [ woman ] hop on over! [ marge ] fiber the fun way, from phillips'. >>> you can follow us on twitter with now with alex. andrea mitchell is coming up with wendy davis. do not miss that. >> test. >> brad: test. i'm a careful investor. when you do what i do, you think about risk. i don't like the ups and downs of the marke

congressman keith ellison, thank you.rotest, i can join you at, i'll be there. >> we'll let you know. >> mika, you stay away, mika. >> joe will join me. >> let the invisible hand do its magic over time. you stay away from these protests. >> why? >> socialists. what are you doing? >> i'll be there. >> come on, mika. >> up next, you'll join me, joe. >> one of the real "housewives" -- >> maybe -- you know i care too much. donny will tell you this has long been my fault, i don't want working class americans to have to pay more money for the big mac. it's a god-given right. have you seen the mcdonald's value meals. these things -- a working-class family can go out and eat there four or five times a week. we don't want to change that. >> i can't imagine that -- >> republicans are -- this polls well among them too. >> i can't believe it's gotten to the point -- >> what about the republicans in congress? >> well -- >> everybody supports cheap big macs. everybody supports cheap big macs. >> joe, you'll be by my side. >> up next, o

joining us live from capitol hill is minnesota congressman, democrat keith ellison, co-chair of the professionalaucus. some economists say a hike in the wage will reduce hiring or at least reduce hours and that the recovery right now is too fragile to start that chain reaction that will ultimately hurt workers. your response. >> there's a lot of economist who is disagree with that, but funny how the economy is not too fragile for ceos to be paid $4.9 million in four months. the ceo of wendy's where i was standing with workers yesterday made that amount. that's a substantial amount of money and a significant amount per hour. we can pay ceos but we won't pay people who actually make the hamburgers and say we just can't do it -- we would but we just can't do it because the economy is too fragile. if the economy is too fragile to raise workers salaries, it's too fragile for exorbitant ceo wages, too. >> what about the chance it can phase out work? there was a study from a pro motor vehicle business group, epi, they said some chains are already experimenting with electronic menus where you can order

and congressman mark pocan of wisconsin and keith ellison of minnesota have introduced that amendment, it is in congress now, and i think it needs to be discussed. not as an alternative to what eric holder and others are doing, not as an alternative to trying to renew and expand the voting rights act at a legislative level but with an understanding that we shouldn't go on forever, debating, you know, state by state, place by place, whether people have a right to vote and to have that vote counted. that ought to be in our constitution and it ought to be clearly defined. >> john: exactly right. section one of their proposal says every citizen of the u.s. who is of the legal voting age will have the fundamental right to vote in any election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizens resides which brings us to voter i.d. laws. catherine, let's state the problem. everybody should have a driver's license or passport but in a free society can that be compulsory and don't voter i.d. laws not just hurt black folks they also hurt college kids, poor people and seniors who might not have easy

what we have right now is congressman keith ellison with a voting rights amendment, constitutional amendment partnering with tens of thousands of people across the country and really working as a partnership. that's how we're going to get real change done. >> i think that's an interesting point. i think it dove tails partly with what michael was saying, which is you're going to have to have a strong national approach. you're going to have to patrol this discrimination. if you can get republicans along, great. if not, then the senate hearing on wednesday, which is led by democrats, will be an interesting place to watch what the reform looks like. i wish we had more time. thank you, both, for being here. >> my pleasure. >> if you want to learn more about this topic, come check out the law of politics on msnbc.com. you can see some of my reporting and some discussions of ways to reform the voting rights act. on facebook, we asked whether you guys think the house will listen to the supreme court and try to come up with a new and fair voting rights law. the responses have been pretty short and sw

i want to recognize the gentleman from minnesota for a minute and a half, the gentleman keith ellison. mr. ellison: let me thank the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. speaker. you know, mr. speaker, young people often ask, you know, i'm interested in politics, i'm interested in public service. who might i look at to model myself after? i can think of very few people who would be better than someone like mr. william gray, congressman gray, reverend gray. so many titles that he held. did i have the pleasure of meeting him. of course i never served with him. but i did get to know him and i got to know him in a strange way. he just called me up at my office and i was like, bill gray's calling me? and i was a brand new member, i was just happy to be here. but bill gray thought that, hey, you know, you're a member of congress, i'm welcoming you to this institution and want to have a relationship with you and i got -- sat down with him, got to know him and he actually was really -- spent his time and gave me the honor of his presence on many occasions and i to myself, you know, bill gray's an

keith ellison two really good friends of ours, have joined with tea partiers in the house to challenge nsa. james sensenbrenner who wrote the patriot act has said don't tell me that my patriot act enables you to do all of this massive collection of data because, he said, that's not what we intended at all. so these left wingers and right-wingers yesterday came together in support of an amendment that would have cut the funding for nsa to collect this phone data and it was a close vote. mike rogers who is head of the house intelligence committee and part of the establishment he says no. this amendment is bad news. this nsa program we need it. >> 54 times, this and the other program stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in europe. >> bill: of course, they keep throwing that out there. they've never shown how collecting, again, the phone data on just one unnamed american innocent patriotic american sit ghen has led to arresting any one. they monitor his or her phone calls and make a connection. it is not finding the needle in the haystack at all. but on the other hand, john

keith ellison you said you could do this through executive order. fine.that hurt on the ground. not giant contractors who already have relationships with government guys, it hurts the small contractors and small business who would like to break into government contracting. president down at amazon today. amazon lobbied for internet sales tax. why? because it muscles out little guys who might compete with them. if he looks at his own policies and the fact that things are getting worse in this area, perhaps the policies are not doing what he thinks they do. bill: i think folks in chattanooga would take issue with the hoity-toity comment. >> i'm talking about federal contractors. bill: that was sarcasm. what is his responsibility as president. >> two things. we bailed out wall street and bailed out big corporation. they never had it better and not doing great. >> on his watch. >> hiring people and investing. president obama will make sure we now invest in things, manufacture things and make things because that is how the middle class got built. we need to do

but also thank my friend, keith ellison, for his perspective on this and i want to speak to that. i thank chairman royce and ranking member engel for their leadership on this bill. the most dangerous threat to eace is that posed by iran's race to nuclear weapons that no one can afford to risk, including our troops in the region. the security council resolutions, iran has refused to heed the warnings and continued along a path toward the bomb, choosing isolation every integration. we are here today to talk about how to stop iran's pursuit. as a government, we have many tools to use. diplomacy is one and diplomacy must continue. indeed, many feel the time is ripe to test president-elect's rouhani's sincerityy. but he must turn his positive talk of a policy of reconciliation and peace into action. we should welcome and pursue his willingness to come to the table to negotiate and delay has been too long for us not to pursue concurrent approaches. that tool of economic pressure, which is working, should also be pursued additionally. that is why i support this resolution. hopefully, neg

so other than ron wyden and mark udall from colorado, i don't hear many voices, maybe keith ellison in. john conyers in the house. not a lot of voices saying this is wrong and we ought to change it. >> yeah, i think you know, edward snowden is finding -- there is a huge pushback from the hill against this revelation. and the fact that he's made them i think i -- we make it more information over time. the president said he wants things to be declassified. to the effect they can be about the programs domestically. we haven't seen that information yet. i'm hoping we'll see it at some point. and at that point, you know, there may be more of a movement toward maybe modifying the program as they operate domestically. but in the international arena i can't imagine anybody in congress pushening for changes on that. people in other countries might push for changes on that. the germans in particular may push back. they're very concerned with privacy and security. >> bill: i read in "the new york times" this morning in their lead editorial that according to these latest documents, again we are --

so, i got together with congressman keith ellison from minnesota and we worked with fair vote to work on a right to vote amendment to the u.s. constitution that would guarantee an affirmative right to vote for every single american. our amendment is a simple -- as simple as it is necessary. it said that every american citizen possesses the fundamental right to vote in any public election where they reside and congress has the power to protect this right. this amendment would create an important change from current policy. no more would americans have to prove that their right to vote has been infringed. if you live in a state right now, you have to proof that that state, in changing voting laws, has somehow infringed your ability to vote. in order to have a success. instead, you under our constitutional amendment, the burden of proof would go to the states and the states would have to demonstrate that any new law they have put in place would not burden any of their citizens' ability to have a right to vote. now, our vote is the great equalizer in this country. my brother and i have on